[Smithalicious]

I hate this "fun is inefficient" mentality that permiates HN. You're perhaps not wrong that most entertainment isn't optimally generating utility (for some definitions of "utility"), but this position is really hard for anyone the HN workaholic culture to empathize with.

[opportune]

the vast majority of revenues from gambling comes from problematic gamblers. Nobody is saying we should make it illegal to go to the casino for a night every few months but the gambling industry doesn't really make money off those people except as a gateway drug. I doubt you could gain insight into the lives of a problem gambler and tell me it's even "fun".

[Gibbon1]

I think gambling is like booze in that respect. There is hardly any tail at all in the distribution. 5% of the drinkers are consuming 95% of the booze.

Edit: Prostitution is probably also like that.

Basically the three things that underpin Atlantic City right there.

[Gene_Parmesan]

Source?

[hacknat]

I didn’t get that read from the OP. Gambling is a tax on ignorance. There are lots of ways to have fun, even thrill seeking fun, that don’t have such horrible downsides.

[Smithalicious]

I disagree that "gambling is a tax on ignorance". You're gonna find very, very few people who don't realize that they're virtually guaranteed to lose money over the long term.

Yes, there are compulsive gamblers who lose a lot of money that they really can't afford losing, and that's bad, but that's far from the majority of people who go to casinos.

[jacobolus]

The airport in Las Vegas is one of the most depressing places I have ever been. There are slot machines in the waiting rooms, placed there so that people who have just gambled away big money over the weekend get one final chance to throw a bit more down the drain before boarding a plane home.

The last time I was there (a decade ago), I watched a mother compulsively dump quarters into the gaping maw while her young child literally sobbed and begged her to stop.

* * *

Casinos are pits of human suffering and exploitation. You can walk into pretty much any one of them at any time of day, head over to the slot machine section, and watch sad hypnotized people hand over their savings bit by bit to machines carefully designed by highly trained psychologists to take their money as efficiently as possible.

* * *

The big money-making gambling in modern casinos is not a “tax” on “ignorance”. It is a large-scale fraud perpetrated against the impulsive and weak willed by some very rich people and their unethical professional employees.

(I’m not talking about college students betting their next round of beers on a poker game here, or whatever. Not all gambling is inherently problematical.)

[myself248]

But those few people who don't realize it (or whose acknowledgement and behavior are not aligned) are the ones who spend the lion's share of the money on it.

Saying that gambling isn't predatory because only a few people become prey is just nonsense. As long as gambling is eating entire lives, it's predatory. Everyone else who walks past the trap without falling in just wasn't their target market.

[fastball]

There is a big difference between a gambling addiction and "having some fun".

In the same way that it is not healthy or productive to sit around all day masturbating, it is not healthy or productive to gamble in a casino. This does not require a "workaholic mentality" (which is itself a strange assertion -- can you not enjoy work? If you enjoy it, is it not fun?) to understand. At least with masturbation you're not literally throwing money down the hole.

[Smithalicious]

Yes, there's a big difference between a gambling addiction and "having some fun". But most people who gamble aren't addicted. Just like how some people might be alcoholics, but the vast majority of people in a bar are just going to be people who go there for fun from time to time.

[fastball]

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the ratio of addicts to people "just having fun" is much, much higher in an Atlantic City casino than the average bar.

[arcticbull]

Well, Atlantic City has a reputation as a kind of degenerate low-rent Vegas, so it's self-selecting.

[intended]

Fun is emotional and emotions are inherently rational. Healthy and productive are subjective judgements on how someone should live their life and have nothing To do with fun.

The fact that someone enjoys work is happy coincidence for them.

There’s many more people doing that exact same job who don’t have fun doing it- the vast majority of humanity does fun things to make their life worth living.

A small percent of humanity enjoys its work; and a far smaller percent both enjoys their work and makes good Money while doing it.

There’s no substantive foundation on which to discuss “fun” while also tacking on “healthy and productive.”

Fun is essentially irrational.